also i noticed the "texel" differences ... but im not sure what it means...didnt have much luck with research...yet...
and ...for daz what would be most important...2gb of ram with higher video processing speed....or 4gb of ram with lower processing speed
any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Comments

Are you also wanting it for gaming? If not then those are probably overkill, unless you plan to make heavy use of LuxRender's GPU assisted rendering. Or you want a supplemental heat source for your computer room.

Are you using anything else 3D besides DS4? the majority of the features these cards offer will not be used by DS at all. DS only uses OpenGL for preview and that's it, as far as I know it even uses an old version of OpenGL. In other words, any card will do. I've recently bought a new computer, brand new graphics card and guess what..... Everything still looks the same in DS. Ds only uses the ED features of your graphics card for preview, nothing else and as said, it doesn't even use up to date features at all. If you don't use the card for much else, buy a bit cheaper one.

As for nVidia being better, I don't know, I've been using ATI with DS For a long time and it always has worked great. Seeing how little DS demands, it doesn't matter at all. Never experienced any problems using ATI with DS. If you're not heavily into gaming and other demanding 3D apps, then go for a category lower and even that will be overkill.

DS real time view rendering isn't good at all, since it contrary to Poser, doesn't support the features needed for that. Not every 3D app supports that or is good at that, so you first need to be sure if the apps you use even support it fully. In DS's case you will be disappointed, your real time view will not look much better with a newer graphics card.

It's not a matter of Radeon being faster. It has to do with the video cards not being used by the renderers built into DAZ and Poser, they and most of the older renderers use the CPU for rendering. Newer renderers like Lux, Oxygen, etc use the GPU but last I saw, none were updated to work with the 6xx series from nvidia yet. Eventually they will be ofc, if not already but it's something to keep in mind. For 3D work I personally would not use Radeon but would stick with nvidia for too many reasons to illiterate, but basically nvidia tends to focus on workstation type 3D applications whereas Radeon tends to focus on multimedia and so is usually the better choice for a multimedia box.

It comes down to personal preference. My last computer had a Radeon and I had nothing but problems with it. I had to replace it while it was under warranty 3 times. I have always been a nVidia fan. I now how the nVidia GeForce GTX570 2560MB. It is a fantastic card but pricy. I do this for a living so the extra money is worth it.

With either manufacturer's gaming/consumer cards and OpenGL you take your chances. Both companies have been guilty lately of breaking their OpenGL layers in their consumer drivers lately -- several times each. The focus on Direct* in those cards has really affected the quality of the OpenGL subsystems. If one's focus is on non-gaming then one should be vigilant when wandering into the cards optimized for gaming. While the GPUs may be the same, the software/firmware isn't.

This is why I stick to the "high end" cards, as OpenGL is what those cards are supposed to do and they take pains to make sure that they don't screw up on them. Neither Company wants to lose a spot in the "Recommended Compatible" lists with the "Big Boy" software companies.

There have been 'patches' in the past for the nvidia cards to open them up to the capabilities of their pro level cards as it is a driver/software issue rather than hardware. The hardware is a fraction of the cost of the pro cards for equivalent or better, but nvidia is charging for different types of usage for that hardware effectively. I don't know if this will work with the 6xx cards as nvidia is trying to separate their pro and gamer cards more supposedly with this generation of cards. Again, not in hardware capabilities as much as being able to operate in a given environment.

the specs seem lower but i dont really comprehend all of the specs..thats why im here...lol

ps - i never plan to play a pc game with this graphics card

You are correct, the specs are lower, as is the hardware compared to the consumer level card at the same price point. But without getting a driver off the internet that effectively unlocks the full functionality of the gaming card for 3D graphics, the quadro will be better suited for 3D graphics. Using a hacked driver has it's own issues ofc.

i dont know much about video cards ...most of the advice and translations i get (for video card information) is coming for friends of mine ...that are gamers...i am not a gamer ..most of this is new to me...

would this be your personal ideal choice for this price range...or would spending a few more $$ be worth the upgarde ...?

3d art is not my business, but 3d art/daz paralells my greatest passions and i would like the experience to be as great as thge progarm is ... for the best value...

i guess i could expand my price range depending on the cost and value...some of the reviews on these cards are a bit confusing for me at my level of understanding

i dont know much about video cards ...most of the advice and translations i get (for video card information) is coming for friends of mine ...that are gamers...i am not a gamer ..most of this is new to me...

would this be your personal ideal choice for this price range...or would spending a few more $$ be worth the upgarde ...?

3d art is not my business, but 3d art/daz paralells my greatest passions and i would like the experience to be as great as thge progarm is ... for the best value...

i guess i could expand my price range depending on the cost and value...some of the reviews on these cards are a bit confusing for me at my level of understanding

A lenovo branded version can be had here for $380US and it says free shipping to the 48Lower.

EDIT: The 2000D you're looking at would definitely be one I'd buy at that price range. But I wouldn't be using it solely for DS. As others have said: on paper the 2000D looks anemic to some of the gaming cards, but the gaming cards have many options shut off either through software or firmware. Also, keep in mind that software like Maya, C4D, Lightwave, et al have software drivers tuned to take advantage of the extra processing channels opened up on these cards.

Performance on Direct* will not even be close on these as the gamer cards, so if you're interested in M$ Tech performance, then you don't want to spend the extra for these cards.

You most likely don't want the "D" version of the card as that is catering to the Medical Fields, with modes for DICOM and Hardware Grayscale reception from medical equipment. You would want the 2000 series, which has the same base hardware but without the medical extras.

I'm not sure that buying a Quadro will speed up the viewport navigation but as it's opengl driven that may be the case although the Nvidia certified drivers for DAZ are very old. As you have a Geforce 9800 gx2 you may try to softmod it to a quadro fx 3700 or 4700. It may work but I'm not sure. If I was you I'd give it a try since there is no risk of damaging your card.

The problem with Quadro 2000 is that it is a mid card and it's spec are low. If you don't plan to use it with softwares like 3DSMax, Maya or Mudbox with millions of polys, it should be OK. For Zbrush and DAZ, it may be better to have a big CPU and lots of RAM. In lots of case, the CPU is doing the job rather than the Gfx card

For Gpu rendering the best choice is to have a primary Gfx Card for the viewport and a Geforce Gtx 580 with 3Gb Vram for rendering if you use Octane. If you use Reality/Luxrender an ATI Card is better. When you do Gpu rendering with only one card, your display speed may slow down (not just in the 3D app but the entire OS) as the whole Gfx power will be used for rendering. That is why it would be good if you could softmod the 9800 gx2. You'll only have to buy an additional card for Gpu rendering if it works. Otherwise I'd say you may have to buy two cards

The part about the ram and poly count or other areas like video editing is an often overlooked and important point. Another one is, if one decides to take their work into something like game design with Unity, etc.. VR, or even video, these environments follow 'gaming' usage.

filthian, although it is good to have the 16gb system ram, we are talking about the ram on the video card itself. It effects how big of a scene you can load (polys, textures etc,) how fast your system slows to a crawl when in preview mode working on the image among other things.

Softmod is for software modification. Changing your Cpu clock with a software that allows you to do it is an example.
Here for your Gfx card it means changing your Hardware ID so that your OS thinks it's an other card. In your case you want your OS to think that it has a Quadro instead of a Geforce. It will allow you to install the Quadro drivers which are specificaly made for 3D apps.

After having a look at the specs of the Quadro Fx 3700 and 4700 I'd say that you should mod to the Fx 4700 as it is a Quadro with two G92 GPU. It seems to be the closest to your card. So I'd try 4700 first then 3700 if it doesn't work. The only problem you may face if it works is that you only have 2 x 512 Gb VRam on the card which may be limiting for big scenes.

About your specs, you should be good with 16Gb Ram and 6 cores. When do you have viewport problem?

Last point just to be sure it's clear for you so that you make the good choice is, like Gedd said, the importance of Vram (aka Video Memory). For the viewport, having too few Gfx memory can give a performance penalty if the scene is too big. Same goes when rendering with your Gfx Card. The entire scene must be contained in your Graphic Card Memory when in CPU only rendering mode. There may be a possibility of hybrid rendering with gpu and cpu but you'll get a performance penalty and there is not always such option in every renderers. So having a lot of Vram is a good thing

As I said earlier, you may end up buying two cards depending on your scenes. Just be aware that the Quadro 2000 has only 1Gb Vram and that can also be limiting for OpenGL preview in Viewport if you go for it.

also...if the low vram knocks the quadro 2000 out of the picture...can u recommend a card that would help ... reguardless of price...but my initial range was around $500
i dont want to be greedy with spending but i dont want to purchase a mistake as well...lots of advice was given that i may not be able to use these types of cards to their full potential...but then again if it would make the experience more comfortable...it would be worth it in my book...using ds4 - zbrush - luzrender / reality (plus futre apps. as i learn more)

as for the viewport lag issues...it seems it maybe the lack of opengl support by my gx2 9800 ... sa well as the low vram...combined issues

I'm not very familiar with wine. The problem with emulators/virtual machines is how they handle 3D Hardware acceleration. I don't know the status on this subject in Wine.

As far as I know you should go Nvidia, because the is a better support for Linux. My experiments in Linux with Graphic Cards is rather old so I'm not certain with ATI
I've looked at Nvidia driver page. the driver package is the same for Quadro and Geforce. But can't be sure they use the same driver. As I didn't find opengl benchmark under linux that is a bit difficult to give an answer. I'd say that you should either buy a Quadro 4000 or a Gtx 580 with 3Gb Vram. The big question is wether there is a performance gain under linux with the Quadro. Have to dig up that

For just about any 3D program. I am talking Daz, Poser, Bryce, Vue, C4D I always use Nvidia. And at the moment the best but I mean very best bang for your buck is the MSI GTX-TI 550 especially in SLI. I have built several machines with them and have two of my own and I can is it is a dream.